Xellular Identity - All About Mobile Content & Marketing

Updates

It's been a while since my last post here and many of you have sent some worried emails asking what's going on...

I am happy to share that the reasons that kept me from blogging for a while were good ones; I joined Comverse as a Marketing Manager at a new product group, offering a mobile advertising solution for mobile operators. Also, as you probably read, I joined the GigaOm network, and will review companies and trends related to the mobile market.

You can also read my first post about Mo’Minis.

-Xen

Super Tuesday - Super New Mobile Apps!

A big day like today brings cool new mobile apps!

First, let me share my own news:

As you know, I recently joined MyFrame Inc., who offers you a cool new mobile application called Flixwagon. For those of you who don't know what Flixwagon is, Flixwagon enables anyone with a capable 3G/WiFi mobile phone to broadcast live videos to the internet.

So you're probably saying, "ok, new mobile gig, where's the news?". We partnered MTV. Today, MTV's street journalism team will broadcast from 23 states to ThinkMTV using Flixwagon. Throughout the day, MTV will regularly break into programming and showcase news features from the live reports.

James Whatley from SpinVox shared that that SpinVox has partnered with WNYC Radio to enable greater listener interactivity during the station’s ongoing coverage of the multi-state primary Super Tuesday. Voters will be encouraged to contribute thoughts, comments and observations by speaking messages to a special phone number set up for the radio station. Those messages will be converted into text by SpinVox and will dynamically become a part of the coverage in real time. Hockenberry and Udoji will report on voter sentiments and read select text on-air.

Interesting to see how new means of communication take part in one of the biggest political events. Will follow closely.

Chating with the Guru

Last week I had the pleasure of chatting with the Symbian Guru, who is also a dear friend of mine, a.k.a. Ricky Cadden.

The topics ranged from creating and sharing media to how exactly our mobiles fit into our lives, and how they might help us connect better locally. Our conversation is now available as a podcast so go over to Ricky's to listen to it.

Mobile World Congress

Hi friends,

I am attending the Mobile World Congress Barcelona (February 11-14 2008) with Flixwagon.
If any of you wants to meet, you are very welcome to drop me a line: xen [dot] mendelsohn [at] gmail [dot] com.

See you in Barcelona! :)
Xen

Until 2008

Thank you to everyone who has stopped by to read or comment.  2007 has been a fascinating year, thank you to everyone who's made it fun. 

Will be back here on 2008 :) Happy Holidays, and have a fantastic 2008.

Changes Coming Up

Hi all,

I know bloggins has been very slow lately, there is a good reason for it. Many changes are on their way so please be patient.

More news and updates about it in a couple of weeks.

Thanks a lot,

Xen

Harnessing Blogs for Marketing Campaigns

Hi all,

I was invited to give a presentation about blogging from a marketer's perspective. As a blogger, I get many press releases sent to my inbox everyday, hoping to get featured. However, many of them are irrelevant to my field of expertise and to the topics I cover at my blog. Eventually, many of those press releases find their way to my trash can...

At the ordered lecture, I want to present examples of smart and creative marketing campaigns that harnessed the power of popular blogs for marketing goals. I started to search the web and found this amazing story at Word of Mouth Marketing Association website:

"Toyota recently completed a campaign in which it engaged a team of Greek bloggers to spread the word about its new hatchback model, the Auris. Toyota wanted three things from its Greek Auris campaign. One, it needed to be digital. Two, it needed to put the car's interior -- its "cockpit" -- front and center. And three, it needed to inspire test-drives and get consumers into the driver's seat.

To achieve its goals, Toyota decided to let its customers market the Auris for it. It invited 15 Greek bloggers to test-drive the car for a week, and encouraged them to post their findings to an official Auris Blog as well as to their own blogs. The results:

* Bloggers wrote 55 posts about the Auris.

* Readers posted 175 comments to the bloggers' posts.

* The Auris Blog received 52,000 visits from 41,000 unique visitors.

* The campaign generated 2,000 test-drive requests -- 50% of all test-drive requests."

[via WOMMA]

If you have more examples of this kind of marketing activities - please contact me. I promise to give you full credit for it :)

8 Random Things About Me

I was first tagged by Tom sometime last year with “Four things you didn’t know about me”, then I got tagged once again by my beloved Mobile Diva, with 5 things and now, once again I was tagged by my friend Rudy with 8 things!!

So, here are the rules of the new 8 Random Things tag game:

• We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
• Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

And here 8 Random Things About Me:

1. I love to cook but won't bother to make something just for myself (it's just not worth the mess amd cleaning afterwards...).

2. I'm not a morning type... It takes me hours to wake up and hours to get ready...

3. The best part of the meal is the desert! I usually leave room for it :)

4. I love to read. To get hooked to a new book I usually begin reading on weekends when my mind is free. Then if the book catches me I'll use every free moment to continue reading.

5. If you want to make me happy just take me to a huge book store and leave me with your credit card :)

6. The best music concert I've ever been at was Avishai Cohen's concert about 6 months ago. It really moved me!

7. I hate to sweat. Really hate it. It makes me be nervous...

8. After 13 years of short hair, I'm trying to grow my hair and change styles...

I'd like to tag: Om Malik (aiming high), C. Enrique Ortiz, Helen Keegan, Tomi T. Ahonen, Russell Buckley, Paul Ruppert, Justin Oberman, Tom and Avner

Klonies at the NYT

As a fan of David Pogue of the NY Times, I was very proud to see his review of the Klonies mobile Caller ID:

"You know how young people are spending $10 billion a year on ringtones, just because it lets them express themselves? The next big thing, I'm convinced, will be avatars. This feature, too, was on display: You design your own little character, or avatar, choosing a hairstyle, clothes, facial features and so on. Then, whenever you call people, your character appears on their cellphone screens. I'll bet avatars will be the next huge teen fad in 2010 or so."

[via NYT]

Let me provide some background info for those of you who are not familiar with Klonies; Klonies is a new service of personalized avatars by the mobile solutions provider Comverse, that enables the creation of avatars from a big content library of body types, eyes, hairstyles, hats, glasses, moods, clothes, branded accessories, etc., which can be used in traditional web forums, as well as to extend this experience to the mobile arena. Comverse has created a mobile Caller ID service, by which a user can create his Klonie either on the Web or on his mobile handset. Klonies let youth segment do something they could never even dream of doing before: create expressive avatars that represent them on other people’s phones. Klonies give the users extended means for self expression: they define how they are seen by their friends, on their phones.

Then I Met Om Malik In Person :)

And here are some cool pics - and Thanks Niv for the right to publish them :)

Blogference: Om Malik's Presentation

Om Malik gave an outstanding presentation, focusing on his insights as a professional blogger.

“The early traffic trends of Gigaom made it clear: you can build an audience of a magazine that costs many $M with a laptop, a cellphone and a broadband connection.”

However, to meet these goals you need to:

1. Define your mission statement – what is your value proposition for the end reader?
2. Have an answer to “why are you blogging”?
3. “If you screw up – say that you did, otherwise people would move on to the other 20M places that exist on the web.”
4. “Remember that your readers are smarter than you think and smarter than you think you are.”
5. “People should behave in blogs the way they behave in real life.”
6. “People who disagree with you are more helpful to you in the long run - they say something about you.”

Om also provided some insights for the PR and marketers among us:

1. Marketers don’t put the time to read the blogs and think about the reasons of bloggers to write\think as they do. So, you should invest the time to learn the blogger and only then communicate on one on one basis.
2. Do your homework - sort which blogs you should pay attention to.
3. You have to treat every blogger as a newspaper journalist.
4. Give him\her an opportunity to talk with your CEOs.

As an example of business reaching to blogs "the right way", Om presented the case of Joost. Joost offered GigaOm’s readers 20,000 invites; by doing this Om not only provided an added-value to his readers in the form of his insights but also gave them 20,000 invitations. Joost, on their side, got 20,000 tech savvy users who were eager to take the app for a test drive. It is clear how everybody wins… 

As for GigaOm, Om was asked about his shift from the online media, Business 2.0 magazine, to his private-held blog\business. His answer was that while he was a Senior Writer at Business 2.0 and writing GigaOm (on the same time) he realized that the blog was getting more readship, as well as more recognition and more alert discourse was being held through the blog. And the rest is history...

Putting aside the profession for a moment, I have to say that I was very impressed of Om as a human. There is so much for to learn from him... :)

And last quotation – “Thanks to blogging, I take other opinions more seriously.”

How Customer Service Changes The Picture

I wanted to share a horrible experience I had these last two days with customer service. This is not a mobile issue but it does affect my mobility - it is my car.

I am the owner of a Volkswagen Polo. For the last few days the car switches off when it standing (both in neutral and in first and second gear). Being a girl who is clueless when it has to deal with cars, I took my mechanic's advice and went to I went to the Volkswagen’s central garage called “Champion Motors”  to fix it, thinking this is a minor bug.

I was received yesterday morning (7th of May 2007) at 8:40 in the morning at “Champion Motors” garage and was promised to be contacted by the Service Customer Support of any progression. I was also promised that my car will be ready by the end of day.

Until now, more than 30 hours after I left my car in the garage, it hasn’t been treated, not even diagnosed! Even more severe is the fact that I wasn’t contacted at any point to be let known that my car is merely parking at the garage and it is not being taken care off and will not anytime soon!

Today I tried to call the garage several times to learn that they have a work load and cars that arrived 4 days ago haven’t been released yet. Knowing “Champion Motors” can’t provide the service it has committed to, why I was promised that my car will be ready by the end of the day? Why wasn’t I let known, at any point, of the status?

The reason I bought Volkswagen for starters was their image of a very reliable car manufacturer with good service. I believe that what happened to me is not a sufficient level of customer care required by Volkswagen. However, after this horrible experience, I am not going to return to any Volkswagen garages and am seriously planning to sell my car as soon as possible. Also I intend to let people know what a miserable service people receive at Volkswagen’s Central Garage, also known as “Champion Motors”. I heard that Japanese cars are very reliable and provide better customer service.

If any of my readers knows someone at Volkswagen (headquarters, customer service, and other relevant people) - please let me know. Thanks!

And, to take something from this experience, it is not enough to have a great product or service. Providing customer care is very important! It is the taste left in users' mouth after taking a big bite! Make sure you hire the right people to do the job and that you have a suitable policy.

Ovum: The Market of Mobile Content - long, hard slog!

Hi everyone,

I'm happy to welcome Michele MacKenzie from Ovum to review the market of mobile content here at Xellular Identity. Michele is a Senior Analyst and a Service Manager for the Ovum advisory service and Practice Leader for Ovum's Consumer Practice. Michele has over seven years' experience in the telecoms industry, specializing in mobile communications and wireless Internet.

Michele, the stage is yours:

A few years ago the mobile content market grew quickly, but growth was fuelled solely by a special kind of content: personalisation, that is ringtones, logos and wallpapers. People regard their phones as highly personal items, and content for making them even more personal quickly proved to be highly popular.

However, in the more general content areas such as news and music, mobile has taken longer to develop and has grown more slowly. Mobile operators have had to deal with big challenges in re-purposing themselves as content media, in terms of technology, internal organisation, relationships with other businesses and relationships with their customers. Progress on all those fronts has been slow, and it is not over yet.

So although the availability of mobile content has taken big strides forward in recent years, we expect revenue growth to be steady rather than spectacular over the next few years. We forecast that global revenues will grow from around US$31bn in 2005 to US$55.5bn in 2010. In 2005 and until the middle of the forecasting period, personalisation applications continue to dominate. But from 2007/8 onwards other application groups such as Alerts and mobile TV and video will increase their contribution to revenue growth. Ovum expects revenues from rich content - music, games and video and TV - many of which are core 3G applications, to drive wireless content revenues from 2008 onwards.

The market place for mobile content was dominated, in earlier years, by the closed portals of the mobile operators. Those days are over now. We estimate that in Europe 50-70% of content revenues are driven from outside the operator-branded portal. The figure is lower in the US, around 40%, but is growing fast. Operators need to move fast in order to capture and maximise these revenues, by putting in place a well thought through off-portal strategy. An on portal and off portal strategy are not mutually exclusive, they complement each other and are both needed. The walled garden is no longer viable: a single portal will not meet all of consumers’ growing demands. And operators benefit from off-portal content too: it drives revenues from data traffic, and we believe it will also help open the way for advertising revenues going forward.

On the global level, mobile content, including data traffic, is around 5% of total consumer service revenues at present. We expect this to hover at around 5 or 6 % throughout our forecast period. The wireless content market still faces a huge number of challenges. Many of the new higher value services such as music, video and mobile TV will go through a bedding down phase and will take some time to reach the mass market, not least of all because of low handset penetration supporting the new services and other key enablers such as DRM. Many players have now made those initial investments and have done the groundwork to either launch the service or prepare for launch. Many are now addressing the early market and looking at how to bring those services to the mass market. Two new areas of great potential are social networking and mobile advertising. These two key areas are intrinsically linked: mobile social networking services can drive mobile advertising revenues. But both are embryonic at present, and wireless players are still grappling with the issues they involve: they are a long way from mass-market uptake.

The key challenges that wireless players are facing when it comes to growing the wireless content market are:

• Increased competition in a convergent world
  Consumers are targeted with content and entertainment services by their TV providers as well as their fixed and broadband service providers and in addition by their mobile providers. On top of that, they may well already have their email or instant messaging account with one of the large Internet portals such as Yahoo! which will also be offering them a range of services. This is where mobile players need to think more carefully about a multiplatform strategy and partnering with other players out there. The market is very crowded with many players looking for a share of both the end-user revenue and the advertising revenue.


• Wireless players move out of the comfort zone
  Providing music and TV services is a different business to personalistion. Wireless players are now exposed to greater competition (see above) which means lower margins. Many will struggle to differentiate and build the business and some will do well to take on the facilitator role rather than compete head on as a service provider. These roles are not mutually exclusive.


• Wireless operators need to harness the off portal opportunity
  There is a growing trend for wireless operators to absorb or subsidise the traffic charges for on portal services. This of course is an area of contention for off portal players, many of whom are reviewing their options having seen increased barriers to entering the rich content market due to prohibitive traffic charges. In order for the rich wireless content market to grow it will be critical for the wireless operators to look at a wholesale data strategy for third parties or flat rate data packages. If you don’t do it somebody else will so it is better to plan your strategy early on.

I've Been Tagged - Five Things About Me

I was first tagged by Tom sometime last year with “Four things you didn’t know about me”, and now I got tagged once again by my beloved Mobile Diva, this time with 5 things! I guess the next round will be 6 things and so on… :)

So here I go with 5 things you didn’t know about me:

1. I use glasses since I was about 3 years old. Since I turned 14 I started using contact lenses. I put them on the minute I wake up and wear them until I go to sleep. Sometimes I even forget I’m “4-eyed”…
2. I’m very short! My height is (only) 1.52m (and I weight 47 kg). I was always the shortest girl in class so I always got to sit the closest to the teachers in the front row.
3. Even though #2, when I was 21, during a family vacation in Mexico, I was offered to model for a chewing gum campaign. I refused since I had to get back to Israel on time for the beginning of my first year of university… (After reading Darla’s story about the Vaseline on the teeth I guess I made a smart choice).
4. My dad is a dentist, so I got lots of opportunities to get my smile featured on his clinic’s walls ;-)
5. I have a dream of living (and working) abroad (only for a few years), most desired place is Spain - but I’m sure that other locations might do the trick as well.

Well, I tag the following friends (hope you haven't already got tagged): Jan Kuczynski, Nick Wright, Martin Sauter, Russell Buckley and Emily Turrettini (even though I never got to speak with Emily). Enrique, you were one of my natural candidates but I saw you've already been tagged :)

Update: I'm tagging Georgie as well! :)

NY: Babysitting Children's Mobiles

Anastasia Goodstein covers the ongoing story about the NY ban on cell phones in the nation's largest school system.

“The decision by Mayor Bloomberg to enforce the ban of cell phones in New York City public schools originated as part of a 1987 decision to prohibit all electronic devices that was part of a metal detector process meant to discover weapons. School safety officers began confiscating all electronic devices including phones, pagers and iPods being brought to school. The ban has parents up in arms because they are afraid they won't be able to reach their children in case of an emergency or terrorist attack and is being challenged in court.”

[via Totally Wired]

It seems that officials are now signaling that there may be room for compromise. They are exploring the option to install lockers outside schools to store the devices. This development has delayed recent court arguments on the ban.

When I was a teenager we didn’t have mobile phones (and I’m not THAT old). My parents bought me my first mobile when I joined the army and as a soldier I had only one free hour to take a shower, get ready to sleep and to stand in line for the 3 payphones available in the military base. So, yes, the mobile gave me the opportunity to use the free hour more efficiently and stay in touch with my family. This doesn’t mean that today’s parents should give up on the ability to reach their children. Just get some perspective and remember that while being at school there are many adults around which are in charge and also parents can always call the office and leave their kids a message (as we used to do not so long ago).

However, students will remain students and teacher will always need to deal with disciplinary issues; if it won’t be a mobile phone ringing it will be other communication device/tool (remember the paper notes we used to pass around?). It is the essence of being a kid.

MobDreaming

Last night I had a nightmare: I was gun pointed and under a threat. Luckily I had my mobile in my pocket so I tried to send an SMS and ask for help (thought I don’t remember who I was sending the SMS to).

After waking up and feeling relieved it was just a bad dream, I tried to think of the meaning of my dream. I realized, that I could recognize the mobile which I was using (my new Nokia HS). Putting a little more thought into it brought up the realization that this was the first time (that I can remember) that I’ve ever dreamt of my mobile phone and about sending SMSs, even though I work in this industry… Have you dreamt of your mobile, your PDA or something like that?

I wasn’t sure about the meaning of my dream, so assuming Carl Jung's theory of images in dreams (monsters, masks, whatever) representing the same things to all people is right, I tried to search the web for the interpretation of mobile phones and SMSs in dreams. Besides the “The Interpretation of Dreams” by Sigmund Freud, I found many websites containing "dictionaries of dreams" (you can take a look at these if you're interested: dreams at maxabout.com, Dream's Central dream dictionary) but no mobile or SMS and no telephone or TV either(!).

Well, I'm sure there is already a "collective unconscious" regarding telephone, TV and even mobiles. So if you have any suggestions about the meanings of these - you're welcome to comment :)

Happy Holidays

Hi everyone,

Have a Safe and Happy Holiday Season, and best wishes for a wonderful New Year! 

And a personal note - Happy Birthday Dad!  :)

View the animated card online

Blogli - A New Hebrew Blogging Platform

I wanted to congratulate a dear friend and one of my favorite bloggers, Tom Sella, for launching his new Hebrew blogging platform - Blogli. Together with 2 fellow israeli bloggers Hanit Cohen and Elad Salomons, they've created a very powerful blogging platform based on Wordpress and already have gained a lot of traction.

Way to go Tom! Good luck guys! :)

Out For A Few Days Off

Posting will be renewed next Thursday as We're taking a few days off to spend at the North. No phones, no email access, just some peace of mind... :)) Have a great weekend and see you soon!

Happy New Year - Shana Tova

Happy new (Hebrew) year everyone!

To see this sweet animated greeting you can use this link: http://192.118.48.66

:)

Xen

Fun Dial - Here I Come

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share the latest news... Starting yesterday, I'm joining the Comverse Fun Dial business unit. You probably know our service under its common name of ringback tones.

For all Klonies fans among you - don't worry! This doesn't mean I'm leaving the Avatars Group. As a positive outcome of the company's latest reorganization, The Avatars Group and the Fun Dial now belong to the Content line of business, so I will be working for both at the Marketing Department.

Naturally, in the near future I will be mostly learning, however it would be great if you have interesting ideas\ findings\thoughts to share about the mobile music industry which I'm joining. Your welcome to email me or comment. 

Dolls' Peronalization

Idan sent me these pics from “Boyds Personalization Center” in NY (correct me if I'm wrong about the store, dear). As you can see, girls are now offered to personalize their dolls and choose from a wide selection of color and hairstyles (no need to make improvised haircuts that end up in tears), color of skin tone, color of eyes, and of course many clothes etc’… (If I was given this task of choosing as a little girl it would have taken me ages to decide which items to buy or even worse, all of my spending money; because a girl needs a wide wardrobe to select from...) ;)

I don’t know if this is influenced by the wide world of personalization that rules the world of virtual identities (MMOGs, IMs, chats, forums and even mobiles) or vice versa. Yet in both, “the user” identifies with the doll\avatar during “the playing time” and is willing to invest money in the looks of the subject of identification.

[Thanks dear! :) ]

     

Free Mobilists’ Mobile RSS Reader

MobHappy teamed up a while ago with Free News to offer a mobile phone RSS reader, which allows you to follow our favorite blogs from your mobile.

And now they are extending this popular service to include all their Mobilist friends and offer a Mobilist Mobile RSS reader, consisting of the 14 most popular and active Mobilist contributors. I'm honored to be included: Go a head, try it out! :)

• C. Enrique Ortiz
• Darla Mack
• M-Trends
• MobHappy
• Mobile Enterprise Blog
• Mobile Marketing & Spam
• MoPocket
• Open Gardens
• Smart Mobs
• Textually
• The Pondering Primate
• WAP Review
• Xellular Identity

Mobile Romance

Hey everyone,

I decided to share a sweet pic I got from Idan. What do you think? :)

Technorati Tags: mobile romance, mobile, Idan Aderka, sweet guy, personal

Some Info About My Readers

Acording to Microsoft's demographics, most of my readers are 18-24 males. BTW, Google is for the ladies, lol. Don't believe me? - check for yourselves :)

Technorati Tags: Microsoft adCenter Labs, demographics, blog readers

What A Shame (or the one thing I hate to acknowledge)

I believe in people. I'm naïve and I hope to stay that way. The thing I hate to acknowledge each time again is that - there are "little people" out there. By "little people" I refer to people who are manipulative and dishonest. They are little because their lack of self confidence drives them to use these methods to accomplish their goals. If their self esteem was higher, they could have stand behind their words and be committed to themselves/ their opinions/decisions even if it's hard to do so in social/ political terms.

When it comes to my close circle of loved ones - I just cut those people out. -Dishonesty? -elsewhere! But when it comes to the big world outside - I can't help it - there are some "little people" among the rest of the human kind and we just need to learn to live with it as hard as it might be. I can only wish those "little people" to find their inner strength and value to grow and to be able to replace the manipulations with honesty… and there are complicated situations where it really is so *HARD*!

4 Things

In response to Tom Sella, Avner Ronen and Gorillasushi

Things that you probably don't know about me:

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Babysitter
2. Private tutor
3. Dentist's reception desk
4. Counter girl at Burger King

Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. The Little Mermaid
2. The Lion King
3. All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar)
4. Talk To Her (Pedro Almodóvar)

Four places I have lived in:
1. Asseret, Israel
2. Jerusalem, Israel
3. Ramat Gan, Israel
4. Shdema, Israel (current)

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. Sopranos
2. 6 Feet Under
3. Nip/Tuck
4. 24 (first and second seasons)

Four books I would recommend:
1. The Wined-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
2. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
3. A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz (Hebrew)
4. Blindness by José Saramago

Four places I have been on vacation:      
1. The Dominican Republic
2. Mexico
3. Andorra (Skiing – what else?) ;)
4. Egypt

Web sites I visit daily:
1. Bloglines
2. Moconews
3. MobHappy
4. Ynet (Hebrew)

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Sushi
2. Fetuccine with creamed mushrooms sauce
3. Chilaquiles (and other Mexican dishes, especially my mom's. Yes, btw, both of my parents are from Mexico).
4. Tomato Soup with stars (both of my parents bring this dish to its best with totally different recipes).

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Sandy beach with a fruit cocktail and a good book
2. Learning some latin dancing
3. Anywhere reading a book
4. At work instead of being sick at home…

Four friends I think will respond: (but don't have to)
1. Darla Mack
2. Stowe Boyd
3. C. Enrique Ortiz
4. You :))

Now, here's what you're supposed to do... and please do not spoil the fun. Copy the entire text in this blog, paste this text, delete my answers and type in your answers. And publish your post. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little unknown facts about each other.

Technorati Tags: 4 things, four things

Not Feeling Good

I'm sorry that there were no posting during the last week. I was down with flu and I'm still not feeling 100%... My best friends for the last 5 days were Kleenex, cold showers and Dexamol Cold day & night (what a genius idea to provide a different dosage!). Hoping to get back to the human society very soon!

"Share" Your Personality

Yesterday I had a very interesting conversation with a new friend who shared some of his views about the future of mobile personalization. For Gilad, mobile personalization is all about presence and content sharing. You probably ask – what those have to do with personalization… I’ll explain :)

Remember the days, when the mobile was a newborn, batteries had very short life and we had mentality of wired communication? Oh, we used to turn on the mobile to make a call and then turn it off right away… funny. Thanks to technological changes and improvement of battery life (we still complaint, and yet, they’ve improved…), today we carry it everywhere and always available, sometimes switch to ‘silent’ (still available for SMS) but always ‘on’. It’s interesting to follow how it influences our mobile culture, how our grasp of ‘availability’ changed. First we used the mobile only in emergency, then we demanded everyone to be reachable 24-7 (“why didn’t you answer me when I called? Ha?”). Feeling unpleasant when screened and feeling intruded being called on all hours, we realized availability is fluid and has more then 0-1 sub categories.

BUT… tatatata - imagine that you could get the status (available or unavailable) of friends you want to call without initiating any kind of communication (call or send sms), just like we do today on IM? Even better – imagine that we could get the ‘emotional status’ of them: busy, on the phone, driving, on a date, tired, or maybe pissed off (pls call)… whatever they would want to share about themselves. There’s no doubt that end users would benefit from sparing wasted money on unsuccessful calls, for operators, it’s more complex…

All communication relies on personalization: all I need to do is personalize my profile, express my availability and emotional status and choose who can see/ be subscribed to my profile. As my friends/buddies/contacts, you will probably be moved to see my status changes from ‘cool’ to ‘pissed off’ or even from something very ordinary like ‘at work’ changes to ‘back home’ and initiate communication. Next you could subscribe to my list of 5 last downloaded ringtones/realtones/ ringbacks, learn that I’ve changed my wallpaper and see it, see my location, my last moblog rss… the sky is the limit! Sharing this info with friends is far more reaching self-expression, since more people get to see this mobile content. And from operator’s perspective it could be beneficial too - it urges users to get and share mobile content (the best sales agent is your friend).

Last thing to bear in mind – this is self expression in a non-invasive way, because my friends/buddies/contacts need to subscribe in order to view my content, and I can determine the access or restrictions to it. I guess some of you think – “it’s too much of exposure”… hey, look around at today’s teenagers, the MySpace etal generation, this is how they socially communicate… Be prepared.  :)

Technorati Tags: Gilad De Vries, mobile, personalization, presence, connectivity, availability

Women In Mobile

As the youngest in the gang, I was privileged to participate in Rudy DeWaele’s “Woman in Mobile” series of interviews.
Go ahead and check it out (you too Mom and Dad)! :)

Update: I know Russelle Beattie quited blogging ;)

Technorati Tags: Woman in Mobile, Rudy DeWaele, Xen Mendelsohn, mobile, interview

Happy Birthday To Me

There's no Bday without good friends and a good cake, so here we go:

Great friends, good cake and a birthday girl (26) at the Avatars Group :)

Happy Birthday To Me

Today I'm celebrating my 26th birthday :)

Happy birthday to me :)

Relaxation, Technology and Getting Back in Town

Hi everyone,

I'm back from the greatest vacation ever…! No mobiles, no connectivity, no web… just a lot of people that I love (in person, not mediated through ANY kind of technology) and a lot of resting. Hehe, there are no modern technologies for getting a good ol' relaxation, ha? ;-)

Human Visual Stories

As you probably got to know me by now, I’m really fascinated by the online culture that is growing and developing, and especially fascinated by one of its biggest phenomena, the Avatars.

Once in a while I look for new content on avatars, posts, discussions, apps… whatever my hand reaches – or better said - whatever my RSS aggregator reaches… :) This time, I came across a conversation over WrongPlanet.com forums, asking the community whether “avatars strongly affect how you read a person's posts?”

Before posting here a few answers which I liked, I’ll give you my answer. Of course avatars affect the way you read a person’s post! Over the web, this is the first visual impression we have on a certain community member\ blogger. As a first impression, it plays a major role in managing our impression in the eyes of the other. In everyday life, we need just one look on a person on the street or in the subway to hold an opinion regarding who is he\she, what is his\her lifestyle, economic status and even some notion regarding some personal traits (we can observe aggression, tenderness, exhaustion, suspicion, shyness…).

I’ll confide here and tell you about a little game I’ve had since I was a little girl with big eyes and shy character hiding behind pink plastic glasses… One of my favorite things, especially when I’m on train or waiting to a doctor’s appointment is the people around me. I’ve always liked to examine people and guess who they are, where are they rushing to, gather as much as possible info to learn their story…  (everyone has an interesting story to tell, you just need to look\ listen close enough). I know it isn’t polite to stare, so I try to keep my inquisitive looks invisible… Sometimes I play the little game with a variation: I try to guess who lives in a certain building or house, especially those very very very old ruined buildings with high and narrow windows and rusted blinds. To me the most interesting is the tension between things that are emphasized and things that leak from the side, exposing deeper layers… like a very tidy man, looking like he’s on his way to a job interview, straightening his tie, combing his hair. Everything about him says tension and order but his shoes are powdered with dust… that say it all – he’s trying to make an impression of a tidy man but he doesn’t really have a pedant soul :)

Well, enough with those nonsense and back to the Avatars… :) So, as I said, the visual appearance of things helps us gather so much information on the object of reference (no matter if it’s a human being or an artifact). It has a crucial part in determining our approach and opinion on a given object (is it safe? Can I trust? Am I in danger? Do I believe? Am I repulsed by something?). Especially when it comes to the web and we need to establish our approach and are given so little solid info we can rely on.

NeantHumain: “have noticed someone using a different avatar now (don't remember the old one, just know it's different), and it changes how I read the tone of their messages and how I perceive them as people, too. I often don't even remember someone if they change their avatar or think they're a whole new person. I was just wondering the perennial question: Is anyone else like this?”

Baby: “my avatar is a picture of one of my tattoos, so it’s me whether it reflects badly on me or not.”

aspiesmom1: “Many people's nicknames are confusing to me, or maybe mean something to the person but not to the community as a whole, and so I associate people with their avatars. When they change them it throws me off completely. The avatar itself however, doesn't affect how I view the person.”

Theman: “Well, the answer is yes. That's why we pick them, they say something about who we are, and consciously or unconsciously everyone is influenced, to what degree is debatable but it is impossible not to be.”

As an ending note, I’ll ask for forgiveness if someone got offended by what was supposed to be an invisible harmless investigating look… it’s just for the sake of the human story lying there that fascinates me. A great human story which sometimes I get carried away with… hey, life is the best show you can get around town! :)

Your Xellular Xen

Relaxation Here I Come!!

I just got a call inviting me to the college of alternative medicine to participate in 3 sessions as a guinea pig. That means I'm going to get the best massage ever for FREE and at the best time ever - at the end of Thursday, just before the weekend starts! And three times! It sounds soooooooo relaxing, ha?

To match the spiritual environment, I’m putting a yogi Klonie. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmm :)

Self Portrait Tuesday

I was playing around and found a very interesting web community – The Self-Portrait Tuesday. Each member posts a self portrait on his\ her blog on Tuesdays (as often as wanted) and sends a trackback to the Self Portrait Tuesday Blog. There is also a Flickr group filed under the same title.

I watched dozens of self portraits and I felt admiration for the self exposure that people are willing to have. Yet it should be noted that on the process of taking pictures we stage ourselves (lighting, angles, colors, compositions, etc…). So the outcome is less invasive than a spontaneous paparazzi photo taken on your worst bad hair day. Moreover, there is also the "editing decision", i.e. which pic to upload or to destroy. It’s like willing put up an act on stage – the actor reveals something private about himself (his pain, his joy…) and he puts a mask, a role, a character at the same time. In this duality of hide-reveal, we express ourselves in a very genuine way.

I decided to publish an avatar, a Klonie of myself. Your first thought might be – “she’s hiding, this isn’t a self portrait”. But if you really think about it – every decision we make says something about us. Oscar Wilde phrased it (so much better): "Give a man a mask, and he'll tell you the truth." the mask lets us loosen up and expose hidden parts of the personality. Because we’re putting up an act\ a role we allow ourselves to unleash some inner restrains and express ourselves (“that’s not Xen, that’s Hamlet”). I'll say it allows more libidinal materials to come upon surface and become less hidden. So, next time you change your Avatar into a sexy diva or a Manga worrier think what kind of emotions are you restraining in your life. Or you might consider taking some martial art lessons…

Technorati Tags: self portrait tuesday, exposure, avatras, Oscar Wilde, Flickr Group

Name-Expression...

Hi everyone,

As you probably noticed - the scenery has changed here, and for those of you who usually notice little details, there’s more than meets the eye, a lot MORE than new colors and templates…

Friends, I decided to share with you something personal that happened very recently in my life. My husband and I are getting a divorce. I know that it is very sudden, and it came as a huge surprise to all the people who got to know us as couple… and yet, the decision has been made, the procedures are in process, and this is the right thing to do.

On Saturday, the morning after the decision to break up was made, I felt the extreme urge to change everything here, at my blog. First, there was the name issue. I realized that I’m no longer “Xen Dolev”. But until I’ll have the official papers I can’t officially change my name back to my maiden name “Xen Mendelsohn”. So, for now it’ll be just “Xen”. It’s not that bad actually. But then, I noticed that my name is writen all around (!), so I started changing it everywhere I could... Yet there's a major problem with my blog’s URL since it contains my "old" name in it: “http://XenDolev.typepad.com”. If that is not enough, everyone in the blog sphere knows me by that name and URL...! [For the URL problem, I really need a “redirect link” - If someone knows how to make one, please leave me a comment or an e-mail (thanks!)].

I realized that a name says something about us too – it’s not just something we use as a username or as part of an e-mail address. Think of a social gathering where people mingle: it really makes a different statement if I introduce myself with an academic title (B.A.? Dr? MD?) civil title (Mrs.? Miss?), first and last (last name by marriage? maiden name?) or just by my first name “Xen”. Thinking about it, my beloved Klonie has a very big advantage not having a last name… :)

Well, if I can’t just personalize my name yet, I would then personalize my blog to better express myself! Suddenly my life and my work blend into one another and I really FEEL the extreme desire\ need\ urge to reinvestigate my identity and to express myself as the genuine Xen, as I know she really is. At this moment, my Klonie here really expresses the way I feel now… :(

United Chargers of Mobile!

-What is the most annoying, most irritating, most frustrating thing when you are a part of the 24-7 connected techie community (think before answering, will ya’)?

-When battery dies and you’re stuck with a mobile that can only serve as a paperweight or as a mean for self defense.

The other day I left home in a rush and haven’t charged my mobile phone (happens to the best, right?). Trying to look for a Nokia charger, I found so many good people (with all kinds of mobiles) trying to help but no luck… even other Nokia guys that had a charger with them had the wrong kind of outlet (?!) That was so frustrating!! Why can’t mobile manufacturers make ONE charger for all their HS models? Here’s even a better concept for the mobile industry – a UNIVERSAL mobile charger. I’m willing to give up the royalties, just make it come true…

Gathering of Mobilists

Before you know it, life brings you back to the ol’ routine…

But before getting on with things here, I really have to say that having the opportunity to meet you all in person at the mobilist gathering in beautiful Barcelona was a great treat! Thank you for great conversations, which surely will keep going through blogging life. :)

2nd Update: Barcelona

After a few hours of feeling better, my husband encouraged me to take the flight.

Eventually, I'm taking the flight and will get to Barcelona as planned. So many crazy things can happen to you in 24 hours...

Thank you all and thank you Menash my love for all your love and help!

Update: Barcelona

I spent the entire night throwing up...  :'-(

I'm supposed to catch a flight to Barcelona in less than 24 hours and I'm not sure I'm capable of doing that. I really don't want to miss this event but how can I make it feeling so BAD?! It's like being sick with high fever on your birthday, isn't it? uuuuuuuuuuuuuuffffffffff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm still hoping to feel better so I'll see how it goes and update you.

your Xellular not-feeling-so-well Xen.

Sunday Has Performed an Illegal Operation and Was Shut Down

All yesterday’s morning TypePad servers were down. Yes, I know, it happens all the time! TypePad people wrote that due to some maintenance work, scheduled for the night and early morning, the service won’t be available until 4 am and then the service should be restored… Well, you guessed it right: it never happened. It took them hours to get back. Not to mention the fact that the only way to communicate with them is by a help ticket, which was of course, disabled… so I couldn’t even contact the help desk and get accurate info regarding the situation. What was even worse was that they never updated their miserable TypePad Status Blog. I was so so so furious!

In addition, just to have a nice start for the week, my computer has been working slower than a short-distance-runner-with-a-broken-leg. After shutting down and restarting it like a gazillion times, I could open the web browser to find out that I couldn’t scroll down any window cause the vertical scroll bar decided to take a rest and to disappear from the face of the earth! No one could figure out what was wrong with the @#$%^!! thing.

Eventually I left the office and headed home to my beloved PC. And… surprise! The PC has recognized that a new Audio card was added (?!) and installing the driver caused the PC to enter an endless loop of Windows’ restarts. I just couldn’t take my anger anymore! At the end, I wrote these rants on a piece of paper! Can you believe it?!

Happy Chinese New Year to you all!

Happy Chinese New Year to you all! While drinking my coffee and getting ready to work, I saw pics of the celebrations in China on the news this morning. It looked like a great celebration; I wish I could be there… Then, I decided to check my Chinese zodiac symbol and found out it’s the monkey (I was born in 1980, so you do the math…). Here is what I’ve found about the monkey. It was amazing to read, I think that most of the things are pretty accurate, unfortunately some bad stuff are accurate as well… :)

"Those born in the Shen years are gifted and bright, active and clever, good at competition, nimble and chivalrous, quick in reaction and act according to the situation. They are highly sociable and good in comprehension, easily merged with others, but dislike to be controlled by others and prefer fresh things. They are clever, full of wit, innovative, good at speaking, and have a strong desire of showing off. They are very fit to be actors or promotion traders. They have strong desires in pursuing knowledge, read books of broad subjects, and have a wonderful memory. They are flexible and creative, and have a strong feeling to their elder members of the family." [via Artistic Chinese Creations]

  Read more about the monkey or look for your zodiac Chinese symbol.

What's your chinese zodiac symbol?

Barcelona - Here I Come...

Hi everyone, now it's official - I'm joining my colleagues to the 3GSM in Barcelona. And... I've spoke with Rudy to confirm participation for the mobilists Gathering at Tuesday, Feb the 14th. So, I'll see you around holding a high glass filled with liquid in a strange color and a little umbrella :)

Birthday Cake

This week we're celebrating my husband's 30 birthday! We made a special dinner party to celebrate with all the family. For the occasion, I tried to make for the very first time a pro chocolate mousse with rice krispies (at the buttom) cake. Needless to say, it took me hours and so many dirty bowls, pans and wooden spoons to bring together this master piece. But it was worth it!

The pics were taken with a Sony Ericsson Z800 mobile, not bad, ha? [Should stick to business, right? :)]

So, Menash my love, happy birthday! You're a big boy now!

I love you!

First Post

For the last few days I've been trying to look for something special to say on my first post. No idea came into my mind… So I made a little research and looked for the first entries of my favorite bloggers. And? – Nothing! It seems that almost nobody has said it out loud – “this is my first post ever”. Bloggers tend to just write something about anything as if they’ve done this from the day before the day internet was invented…

This made me think a little about it. What is the reason for it? I guess that we just don't like to be the new kid on the block. That is way we hate the first day of school, or the first day at a new workplace. So we try to avoid it.

Well, I'm going to say it - yes, this is my first post at a blog of my own. Yes, I’m the new girl in the blogging neighborhood and that excites me! :)

I hope that with time, you'll find this blog interesting and beneficial in some way.

Enjoy,

Xen